A Serbian Rubicon?

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/08/11/serbia-considers-buying-chinese-missiles-despite-us-warning/

Normally I would say 'yes', this does represent a Rubicon moment in which Serbia is making a conscious decision to turn away from Brussels (the EU and NATO). Belgrade is (it would seem) done flirting with the West and is throwing in with Moscow.

But it might be more complicated than that.

As American power over Europe (and especially the Western European power centres of the EU) is waning, it's possible the EU might overlook such a transaction. It's noteworthy that the purchase is not with Moscow but with Beijing.

Germany and Denmark are willing to deal with Moscow when it comes to Natural Gas and Macron has argued for a kind of detente with Russia but nevertheless there is a still a general wariness with regard to Putin – especially within some Establishment quarters of the EU. And yet it's also clear that Berlin and Paris are uncomfortable with Washington's new 'special relationship' with Poland, Romania and to some degree the other powers once associated with the Warsaw Pact. The Americans have turned these nations in frontline states and it's clear that elements within Washington are agitating for conflict with Russia – something the rest of Europe doesn't want.

While Merkel and others are unhappy to see Serbia turning away from them, on the other hand their reaction will not be on the same level as the hostile messaging coming from Washington.

But the Americans still have their proxies in Europe to be sure – the strongest of which are within the NATO Establishment and hierarchy and these forces will continue to agitate and advocate the US position and policy for Central and Eastern Europe.

I do not doubt there are those already plotting a new 'Color Revolution' in Serbia – another manufactured phony grass roots uprising to take down the existing political order. But the Balkans are already a cauldron of intrigue and growing turmoil. And the picture is bigger than just Russia. There are other interests and a long and impossibly complicated to history to go along with it. The EU's failure to consolidate power in the 1990's already demonstrates this – a point I am sure is a source of near-constant lamentation in Langley, Foggy Bottom, the Pentagon and other centres of American power.